In a meeting with host Laos’ Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry “urged ASEAN to reach consensus and issue a joint statement on the arbitral tribunals recent ruling on the South China Sea“, said U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner.
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An already tense situation in the South China Sea has become increasingly unbalanced, as the USA moves to install the advanced THAAD missile-defense system in South Korea, claiming the need to protect against North Korean military threats.
“I would encourage President Duterte to engage in dialogue, in negotiations”, Kerry told reporters in Laos where he attended the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers Meeting, the ASEAN-US Ministerial Meeting, and the Lower Mekong Initiative Ministerial Meeting in the capital Vientiane from July 25-26.
China has advocated the “dual-track” approach – disputes should be resolved peacefully through negotiation between the parties directly concerned, and China and ASEAN countries should work together to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea.
“We will not permit any outside force to seek to exploit and hype up the so-called South China Sea arbitration case and bring chaos to this region”, Wang said.
China scored a diplomatic victory on Monday as ASEAN dropped any reference to the court ruling in a joint statement in the face of resolute objections from Cambodia, China’s closest ASEAN ally.
Duterte’s incendiary rhetoric and advocacy of extrajudicial killings to stamp out crime has prompted alarm among the global community, including in the United States.
“China has no intention to challenge the existing global order and rules”, said Xi, adding that the two nations have to respect each other’s core interests. “We always thought that the enemy was across the Taiwan Strait, but now we have discovered that the nations hurting our sovereignty might well be the Philippines and Vietnam”.
In meetings with Yang and Fan, Rice said all countries should “avoid taking actions that raise tensions and could raise the risks of miscalculation” in the South China Sea, said the official, who wasn’t authorized to comment publicly. The Chinese navy’s interaction with the USA fleet has generally been positive, Richardson said, citing regular communication between ships and China’s participation at the multi-national Rim of the Pacific now underway.
At the same time, an advanced missile defence system that the United States and South Korea made a decision to deploy in South Korea has drawn strong opposition from China and Russian Federation.
After a meeting with the foreign ministers of Japan and Australia, the three countries issued a statement in which they called on China and the Philippines to abide by the court ruling “which is final and legally binding on both parties”.
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“Those operations are lawful, they will continue, they’ve been longstanding, and again they’re created to impart confidence and stability”, he added.
